HOW HARD COULD THAT BE? by Trent Arterberry (TA Productions). At the Tarragon Extraspace. July 9 at 4:45 pm, July 11 at 2 pm, July 12 at 9:30 pm, July 13 at 7:45 pm, July 14 at 12:15 pm. See listing. Rating: NNN
Trent Arterberry has spent four decades as a professional mime and childrens entertainer, and this show is his autobiography.
Trim, bright-eyed and unfailingly polite (he says pardon the digression when he spends a moment discussing the past weeks heat wave), Arterberry looks a good two decades younger than he must be, since he was first married in the 1960s.
Of course, this earnest show leans heavily on his skill set a trip to the high school guidance counselor leads to a mimed fantasy sequence as a football player, for example. The program suggests 12 and up,” but aside from an opening birth sequence, the content is heavily sanitized. Theres no mention of personal demons (besides a young mans career indecision), or any of the vices a man whos spent at least 25 years on the road and opened for BB King and The Kinks might have been exposed to. That makes sense, though, once we learn Arterberry’s 12-year-old son is stage managing from the technicians booth.
To work the colleges, cruise ships and schools that hes built a career on (and put two older children through college doing so), Arterberry has clearly learned to work very, very clean. And so his life, as presented on stage, reflects this. The mime work is crisp, and the pacing is brisk, but the dive into his life is shallow.
